Beijing baodu: what a load of tripe
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Baodu is the one of the most famous old Beijing snacks. In the past, celebrities like Mei Lanfang and Ma Lianliang, both Peking opera masters, were keen on it. Records about this dish first showed up during Qing emperor Qian Long's reign (1736-1795). Now the restaurants and stalls that specialize in baodu often are run by people of the Hui ethnic minority, for whom beef and lamb are staple foods.
Of course, there's more to it than just giving it a quick boil. First, as one might imagine, the tripe should be cleaned thoroughly. This is a very important step, for unclean tripe will give baodu a disgusting taste. Chefs often rub fresh tripe with coarse salt to make it cleaner, and vinegar is used to reduce the distinct smell of what was, let's remember, the inside of a lamb's stomach. After this thorough scrubbing, the tripe is cut in slices or shreds, flash-boiled and then fished back out with a strainer. Baodu is served with an assortment of dipping sauces, including oil, sesame, vinegar, chili oil, fermented bean curd soup, coriander, diced green onion and other spices.
Beijingers usually eat baodu in the late autumn and early winter (one can only imagine that steaming plates of tripe don't go down that well in summer). Most eateries are small, but because of the dish's popularity, quite a few restaurants and families have become famous for it, including Baodu Feng, Baodu Zhang,Baodu Shi, and Baodu Man (see box).
The tripe itself is tender and crispy, but getting the sauce right is also vital; finding the perfect recipe is the secret to success. Furthermore, the technique of eating baodu with dipping sauce is considered important enough that Feng explained it on the TV show This is Beijing. Pointing at a bowl of layered sauces, he told audiences, "First you should stir the sauce evenly, like stirring eggs, and then just pick one slice of tripe with your chopstick and dip it deep into the bottom of the sauce bowl. As you draw back you slide along the bowl wall, getting the diced parsley and green onion stuck to it, and then put it into your mouth," Feng said.
All tripe is not created equal, either. In restaurants, it's usually cut into different parts to cook: duban, duxin, duhunlu, dusandan, dumogu, mogutou, shixin, duling and duren. Each part has a different texture, requiring a differing amounts of boiling time. Duren, the most tender, only needs five seconds. Only a little bit of each lamb stomach can be used for duren, so usually this baodu is more expensive, at around 48 yuan per plate.
"The success of boiling tripe completely depends on the chef's intuition. A good chef can know whether it is the right time to fish it out, just by using the strainer to touch the tripe," Feng said. Take duren for example. The chef adds tripe to the water and stirs constantly. When he feels the slices becoming elastic, he knows they are ready.
Now, Old China Hand, are you ready to cut your teeth on some tripe? Be warned, even eating it takes a bit of finesse. "When you slowly chew the tripe slices, a creaking sound is heard, like chewing a tender cucumber. That shows you know how to taste baodu," Feng joked. For all the tripe you can stomach, try any of the restaurants below.
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